


Mucky Pup

by Gimmesumsuga



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Castiel/Dean Winchester Drabble(s), Confused Dean, Confused Dean Winchester, Dinner, Drabble, Food Kink, Human Castiel, Implied Sexual Content, M/M, Mean Dean, Sam Ships It, Upset Castiel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-10
Updated: 2016-09-10
Packaged: 2018-08-14 05:18:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,504
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8000023
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gimmesumsuga/pseuds/Gimmesumsuga
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Cas is a messy eater, and Dean can't help but enable him. </p>
<p>My entry for @destieldrabblesdaily 30K fanfic competition. </p>
<p>Nothing in particular to warn about.  Slight food!kink and Dean being a bit of a jerk.  Nothing gratuitous :)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Mucky Pup

Castiel, as a newly fledged mortal, is what stiff-upper lipped British nannies affectionately refer to a ‘mucky pup’.  

Dean isn’t sure why the ex-Angel’s eye hand co-ordination seemed to go to shit following his spectacular fall from grace, but it/s done just that.  

Castiel seems to have been afflicted with some terrible curse that’s rendered him unable to navigate food from his plate, via fork or spoon, without losing half of it along the way. Baked beans slopped on his t-shirt, melted cheese gooey on his lap, sweet strawberry jam smeared on his face; you name it, Cas has spilt it.

Dean despairs.

“Damn it, Cas, you’re wasting good food!” he’ll cry at least once per meal, forehead etched with deep lines of disapproval.

“Sorry,” Castiel will apologise meekly, cheeks rosy with embarrassment whilst Sam tries to diffuse his brother’s short temper.  

“Lay off, Dean, there’s plenty more.”

But Dean can’t ‘lay off’. It’s so _infuriating_ watching Cas blob and spill and smudge all over the place; ice cream, barbeque sauce, coffee.   This list goes on, and Dean finds himself teasing his friend mercilessly across the dinner table.

“What are you, a toddler?! You need a catcher bib, Cas?”

“Sorry, Dean,” Cas will say.

“We should get some of that plastic sheeting to put down, huh Sammy?  Save wrecking the floor.”

“Dean, c’mon,” Sam will scold.  

Cas will look down at his plate and continue to eat in silence, trying so, _so_ hard to not make any more of a mess than he already has. He’s already swimming in the guilt of requiring sustenance at all – he hates to be a burden to the Winchesters – never mind being accused of being wasteful, too.

Dean knows he’s being too hard on him, he can see it when Cas stares at each mouthful of food with large, watery eyes, concentrating so hard that they almost cross.  But damn it, that’s pie, _apple_ no less, that Castiel has just dropped down his front in a tumble of crumbs and crust, and hell, it’s not even like he does his own laundry – so tease Dean does.

The eldest Winchester isn’t sure why he finds himself preparing increasing sloppy, saucy meals. Dishes that even the most seasoned of eaters would struggle with; meatball subs with lashings of marinara sauce, tacos stuffed with pulled pork and all the trimmings.  Sour cream, guacamole, salsa.  

Dean convinces himself that he’s doing it because it’s funny to watch Cas struggle meal after meal, all flustered and remorseful after each and every blunder.  It’s certainly _not_ because he enjoys the flush of colour that floods Cas’ cheeks pink whenever he’s reprimanded for his clumsiness; that’s barely noticeable sat underneath those cerulean doe-eyes anyway.  

Still, it’s not like any of them are complaining; they haven’t eaten this well in years.  Sam’s having to hit the gym twice as hard to burn of the calories, and Dean – well, Dean says he’s making up for all the God awful burritos they had as kids.  

It’s not until they’re tucking into a rack of ribs – juicy, drip down your chin saucy – that Dean has the fleeting thought that there might be something other than cheap laughs that’s driving his culinary experimentation.  Breakfast the next morning serves to confirm that nagging feeling.

As he watches Cas dejectedly wipe ketchup from his clean-on-this-morning t-shirt Dean makes two unexpected and unsettling realisations.  One; when Cas looks across at him with those big blues, all wide anticipation for the coming rebuke, Dean’s mouth gets so dry that even the wettest of beers can’t seem to moisten his lips.

And two – this is the one that’s worrying Dean most – there seems to be a stirring somewhere southward, down there in his traitorous loins, when Cas decides it’s a good idea to _suck_ at the stain before it has chance to set. White cotton pursed between cracked lips in some futile effort to draw it out like poison from a wound.  The sight has Dean fidgeting at the war table and clearing his throat with a confused and harrowed look on his face.

Cas just cocks his head and narrows his eyes at the Hunter when he doesn’t pass comment on his folly. This was Dean’s t-shirt after all, one of the many hand-me-downs he’d gifted to him when he became human (Sam’s clothes were far too large).  He’d expected his judgement to be swift and merciless, but Dean just sits there grimacing as if he’s in pain.  Cas would ask him what’s wrong but the other excuses himself too quickly for him to find out.  

He laments to himself that he probably isn’t any use to Dean in illness or injury anymore anyway.  

However freaked Dean is, however much these new-found feelings give him the heebs at every coming meal over the next few days, damn it, he just can’t stop providing Cas the means to inadvertently nudge him closer to madness with every mouthful.  He quickly gets over his disquiet at the dinner table, preferring a decision to not over-analyse things instead.  

Denial is a wonderful thing and ignorance surely is bliss, so Dean continues to scold and chastise, all the while pretending to himself that he doesn’t delight in that shame-faced look all over Cas’ pretty face.  

That, and deny that he ever looked at the shorter man’s stubbled profile and thought the word ‘pretty’.

Dean hopes to God they don’t notice the husky tone of his voice or his lusty pitch.  

He also hopes that neither can read minds when he’s alone in the shower one afternoon post-hunt and finally gives in to the seductive pull of his thoughts.  The things he does, the things he imagines behind the privacy of his eyelids – they leave him looking almost as abashed as Cas come next meal-time.    

It finally comes to a head when Sam goes away one weekend, leaving the two men are left to their own devices.  Something about Men of Letters research, who knows, Dean wasn’t really listening, not when Cas is retrieving a smear of peanut butter from his ear (“How did you get it there, Cas?  Jesus!”) and sucking the viscous paste off of his finger so hard that it hollows out his cheeks.

He pretends not to hear when Sam mutters something about Dean rearranging his closet on the way out.

“I could assist, if you wish?”  Cas offers, all obliging and eager to make himself useful to make up for the fact that he’s just dropped jelly on his lap _again_.

“Just eat your damn sandwich.”  Dean thinks Cas doesn’t need to know that he’s the very reason his closet is in disarray, a jumbled mess where things were once hung so neat and tidy and _straight._  How the hell did this happen to him?  

Dean’s practically giddy with excitement when he orders Chinese takeout for them that evening. Even giddier when he’s laying out chopsticks for Cas to try and use – trying and _failing_ being the preferable outcome.

He must be some kind of masochist, he realises, for orchestrating such a sweet torture for himself.  Maybe a sadist, too; he knows he’s setting Cas up to fail night after night for his own gratification, and even Dean can see that Cas’ self-esteem isn’t exactly top notch after his depart from Heaven.   Still, just the thought of that wet tongue darting out between chapped lips in a futile clean-up attempt has Dean palming himself through his jeans in anticipation.

God, when did he turn into such a pervert?

Cas almost turns and walks straight out of the room when he sees what’s laid out waiting for him, overwhelmed by an urge to turn and flee.  But he’s hungry and it smells so _good_ and he’s never had Chinese food before, so he approaches the table with a fool’s hope that maybe chopsticks are more his thing.  He doubts it, but he still hopes.  

“You’ll be fine,” Dean lies as his friend takes a cautious seat.  Cas quickly looks up, inspecting the green-eyed man opposite and wonders what he’s done to deserve anything other than reprimands.  Words of encouragement are rather thin on the ground as of late.  

“Maybe take off your shirt, though,” Dean suggests in his most casual of voices as he spoons something in a bright orange sauce onto a bed of rice.  Blue orbs widen slightly in surprise, and Dean nonchalantly doesn’t notice. “This stuff stains, and it’ll be me that has to try and get it out.”

“Alright…” Cas agrees slowly.  His stomach churns with anxiety as he fumbles with buttons, and when Dean plonks a full plate in front of him he suddenly doesn’t feel so hungry anymore.  He shrugs off his shirt and tucks it over the back his chair, glancing up to the eyes he can feel watching.  The intensity he finds there makes him imperceptibly shudder. He’s watching, just waiting for him to fail, Cas knows it.

Was Castiel always this well chiselled?  Did his skin always look like it’s worshipped by the sun?  Dean isn’t sure, but his eyes seem determined to find out.  He can’t seem to drag them away.  He tries to make it look like a glare, though, less of a lustful stare, and judging by the way Cas is shifting nervously in his seat Dean figures he must be hiding his true intentions fairly well.    

And so it begins; a veritable firework display of rice that rains as it falls from between Cas’ chopsticks; onto the table, onto the floor, onto his lap, taking with it the gooey sweet sauce that sticks to each grain.  With each catastrophic mouthful Castiel becomes more and more dejected, scowling with narrowed eyes at the utensils that have betrayed him.

Cas pincer grips rice off his chest and pops each morsel into his mouth as it’s retrieved and then uses his finger tip to delicately wipe away what sauce remains – all the while trying to avoid Dean’s scrutinising gaze, sure that he’ll be told how utterly useless he is at any moment.  And he is, he’s so useless and uncoordinated and so _miserable_ about it, and when a large piece of chicken slips from between the two sticks and splatters unceremoniously onto his stomach Cas feels like he might cry.  

“Dean…” he begins, mustering up his courage and trying to keep his voice from wavering, “May I please use a spoon?”

Oh no, definitely not. Dean is enjoying the show far too much to stop it now.  

“It’s Chinese, Cas. Chinese means chopsticks,” Dean tells him firmly, relishing in the way Castiel’s eyes drop back down to his plate as the lightest of blushes colours his cheeks.  He could swear he can see the other man biting on the inside of his mouth.  “You need to learn.”  

And oh, that’s not the only thing Dean would like him to master.  There’s so much else he’d like to teach those clumsy hands and sloppy mouth. Make Cas flush and pale with praise and correction.  

Dean had no idea he was this kinky.  

When it happens again, when food falls from his chopsticks barely a centimetre from his mouth and smears sauce down his chin and his chest and _everywhere_ as it goes, Cas can’t take it anymore.  Something inside him snaps.  He drops his utensils in a clatter against his plate, leaning an elbow onto the table and forehead onto palm, fingers raking anxiously through the front of his hair.  

“I- Dean-” he gulps out, shoulders heaving with big breaths that shudder in and out, “I can’t!”  

Dean looks back at Cas, mouth open with food already halfway inside, taken aback by the sudden outburst. He realises, with horror, that he’s never seen Castiel cry before; something that looks very much like it might change.  His Adam’s apple is bobbing up and down rapidly as he swallows against the burn of un-spilt tears in his throat and he’s screwing up his eyes tight, trying to resist.  

He’s taken it too far, he realises, pushed too hard.  He never wanted to break him, he never wanted _this._

“Cas, hey, c’mon, it’s ok,” Dean assures him, rushing around to the other side of the table to take the chair next to his friend.  He acts unthinkingly; listening to the instinct to comfort that accompanies the overwhelming remorse roiling inside him.  This is what Dean is good at; doing, not thinking, so he doesn’t second guess the way he places his hand on Castiel’s bicep, squeezing gently.  “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have made you.”

Cas lifts his head at the sound of Dean’s apologies, blinking back tears that have already wet his dark lashes as he gazes back into worried jade eyes.   Why is Dean sorry?  Isn’t he angry?  He’s made such a mess…  

Cas can only look back in wonder as the man sat next to him tenderly wipes away the smear of sauce still lingering on his chin and takes it for himself, posting his fingertip between heart-shaped lips to lick it clean.  

“I’m sorry,” Cas whispers, breathless and confused and happy all at once, because he’s never seen Dean looking at him like quite this before.   Cas has looked at the Hunter like that plenty, all quiet admiration and affection, but to see it reflected back?  Well, that’s something.  

“Don’t be,” Dean scolds softly, the corners of his mouth tugging upward into a small smile that acts as a balm to soothe any negative feeling Cas has ever had.  “Give them here,” he encourages, inclining his head to the chopsticks.  Instead of taking them as he’d expected, Dean wraps his large, warm hand around Cas’ and shimmies over to sit almost flush against his side.

Like that, all hot breath against his ear, bodies breathing in perfect synchronicity, Dean teaches Cas how. It’s so wonderful, so kind after so much cruelty.  It couldn’t be more perfect, Castiel is sure, but when the food is gone and Dean turns to him with nervous, darting eyes and cheeks flushed under freckles, he’s proved wrong.  

Their lips find each other, and oh, if a kiss like this is what he gets each time he errs then Cas can live with that.  He’ll spill and fall and whatever Dean wants, just for another taste.  

When Sam returns home the next day he finds abandoned half-eaten casserole but not a trace of Dean or Cas.  He soon discovers them, though, stumbling out of the bunker bathroom with one shared towel around their waists, smiling and laughing and Cas pressing sloppy kisses to Dean’s jaw to a backdrop of steam.  

“He… uh… he made a mess again,” Dean offers as stuttered explanation when they finally spot Sam, mentally scarred as he is, standing there in the hallway.  

Sam just smiles, shakes his head, and chuckles as he walks away. He always knew something would bring those two together soon or later.

He just never expected it to be his brother’s beef bourguignon. 


End file.
